


Firsts

by NebulousMistress



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: #72 Well of Night, Cecil's Fashion Sense, Episode Related, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 21:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4720433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The "old" well in the south of town is glowing. It's not really old, it's only been there two days, but it's really hot outside and it feels like it's been there forever. Also it seems to be collecting a cult of eyeless chanters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firsts

_"Well of Night! Well of Life!”_

There was that chanting again. According to Cecil it started the day before, rising and falling all through the night, never reaching a crescendo. Carlos hadn't heard it, he slept soundly like any good scientist. With tools.

Like earplugs. It was the only way to sleep through the horrible noises the sunrise made.

But this, this was more omnipresent. It didn't begin and end with a POW, it didn't fade immediately. It didn't seem to be fading at all, not since daybreak. In fact it was growing louder. Louder, harder to ignore, filling his mind with a pounding need...

_"Well of Night! Well of Life!”_

Carlos slammed down his contraband pen, reflexively folding his lab book closed around it. The chanting was becoming too much of a distraction to work. Perhaps he should go to the new “old well” in the south of town and observe the proceedings. For science.

The well was easy enough to find. A great beam of creeping blackness shone from the well like some sort of anti-light. It wasn't shadow, it certainly wasn't light, it was something else. Non-light, perhaps. The non-light reached up into the sky, poking a hole in the clear blue to the Void beyond, shining like a beacon.

Carlos wasn't the only one following that beacon. People converged on it, on the giant chanting crowd that apparently came to worship the thing. Even Cecil wasn't unaffected, breaking into chants as he tried desperately to cover the news. As he faltered and failed, as he left the recording studio mid-sentence, repeating the same chant that echoed everywhere.

_"Well of Night! Well of Life!”_

The well was surrounded. Most of the town appeared to be here, dancing and reveling around the non-light beacon. Carlos stood beyond the edge of the throng, watching. After all, as a scientist it was his duty to catalog the effects this non-light, to observe the revelers and their strange symptoms. All of them seemed to have their eyes... closed? He hoped that was all it was. And their hair... Radiation poisoning could be common among those who got too close to Radon Canyon but never before had he seen hair crawl back into a person's scalp.

Something about the whole display made his skin crawl and his scalp itch. He rubbed at his arms, suddenly feeling cold in the noon heat.

He shouldn't be here.

_"Well of Night! Well of Life!”_

A familiar voice rose over the din.

“Well of night! Well of life! Well of night!”

No...

Carlos turned, craning his head to see the voice among the chanting crowd. There Cecil was, leading a group of radio interns into the pulsing horde. His hair was gone, all his beautiful black and white hair fallen out or sucked in or whatever. His eyes were closed or worse, _not even there!_ Even the third eye drawn on his forehead was gone, erased. The tattoos on his arms writhed under rolled-up sleeves as he led the hapless interns, as they suffered the same fate even as Cecil chanted at the top of his lungs.

“Cecil!” Carlos cried. He had to get his lover out of here, get him away from this place, maybe he'd recover, maybe something...

Eyeless faces turned to him.

Oh no...

_"Well of Night! Well of Life!”_

Strong hands gripped Carlos' arms. Warm hands that slid to grasp his own before yanking him away from the safety of his car's shadow. Eyes wide with panic Carlos watched as the eyeless Cecil grabbed him, spun them both into the worshiping throng. Gleeful laughter invaded Cecil's chanting as they were both pulled into the dance.

Carlos screamed, eyes shut in terror.

But then...

The terror faded. His scalp itched terribly and he couldn't open his eyes but he could see...

The terror faded into laughter as words came bubbling out of Carlos' throat.

“Well of night... well of life... Well of night!”

 

* * *

 

Carlos awoke with a shriek.

The well, where was the well? Did he have eyes? Hair? Oh merciful god, was Cecil okay? Where was he?!

An annoyed sound rumbled from underneath him as a hand grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him back down to rest against a firm chest, rising and falling with interrupted sleep. Arms wrapped around him, holding him tight, keeping him grounded...

Wait...

How did they get here?

The last thing he remembered was a bird and descending into the well and having this intense feeling of belonging, of one-ness, of everything and nothing making _sense_ all at once...

Yet here he was, in the community radio station building, laying on Cecil on the couch in the break room. Cecil looked okay, his hair none the worse for wear. The third eye drawn on his forehead appeared to be as asleep as the rest of him was trying to be. His eyes were closed but they were _there,_ not sealed shut or missing or overgrown with flesh. There were marks on his neck, marks that looked much like a knife blade had been drawn across the skin.

Carlos' own neck was sore, too. He reached a tentative hand to it, finding dried blood and a painful line across his skin. He started to shake, hands going to his eyes (present and uncovered), his hair (thick and long, if only Cecil would let him cut it), to patting himself all over to make sure everything was accounted for, nothing weird, nothing missing, nothing added, nothing else wrong...

Cecil yawned as he gave up trying to sleep. His hands went up to entwine in Carlos' perfect hair, to draw panicked eyes to his. “Hey,” he whispered.

Panic turned to indignance. “'Hey'?” Carlos demanded. “We were just... We just... What was that?!”

Cecil ran his fingers through Carlos' hair, stroking it like he knew the scientist liked. “We were inducted into a chanting circle, I think,” he said. “Maybe a cult? I dunno. Depends on if it happens again.”

“Again?” Carlos found himself leaning into talented fingers before pulling away to glower down at Cecil. “What do you mean 'again'?! Don't tell me this happens often.”

“It's been awhile, I admit.” Cecil glanced a quick once-over, checking to make sure Carlos was no worse for wear. His perfect hair had returned, thick and wavy, unruly and just as long as before. His eyes flashed with an array of emotions, fear, anger, confusion, worry, but they were there flashing. His neck bore a superficial knife wound, dried blood still caked on the skin where the great bird had failed to lick it off. “But this one was rather nice, don't you think? It had dancing and chanting and blood and hummus and all that belonging. Not like some of the others with the sacrifices and the dead lizards.”

Carlos pulled away, sitting on Cecil's belly. He ignored the oof below him, too preoccupied with his words. This... had happened before. And while he'd been able to separate himself from the weirdness of Night Vale before, this...

He hadn't been able to this time. No, this time he'd sought it out, been dragged in, stayed...

With an oof and a growl and a thud Cecil extracted himself from beneath Carlos and landed on the floor. The break room couch was only big enough for two when those two were inventive or perhaps not sitting on one another's stomachs. He adjusted his cat ears and resigned himself to using the couch normally, sitting next to Carlos with an arm around him.

“I think this was a nice induction for your first time,” Cecil said. “It was all just good things, or at least reversible things. I don't think I could abide by a cult where you'd have to lose your hair for more than a few hours.”

Carlos huffed and leaned into Cecil's arm. Cecil was right, this wasn't that bad. And at least he had his eyes back. And his hair. And everything else. And a craving for lemon cookies for some reason.

He knew just how to get back at Cecil for this...


End file.
